Intolerance for "noise"?

Having recently finished reading Vikram Seth's, A Suitable Boy i couldn't stop mulling over the comments from many of my friends over my 'accomplishment.' Yes, they do perceive it as a feat of sorts...reading so dedicatedly a tome weighing more than a pound and spanning to an extensive 1350 pages! But as i stop and think about their astonishment...i wonder if it stems more from a surprise that such a long novel...dotted with innumerable characters, their twined and intertwined ordinary stories, the not so related characters and their non heroic tales of friendships and enmities....not merely held my attention, but thoroughly delighted my senses! I wonder if in an age of bestsellers, those sleek tailor made linear tightly woven narratives, with the promise of a roller coaster ride...to be undertaken and finished while waiting for that A train or traveling on that M4 bus, or just waiting for that appointment with the dentist...have we come to inhabit a world that only appreciates everything that is to the point, and sees everything that is not, as "noise," an irritating noise? As people always hard pressed for time, as people always hard pressed to live life king size following the philosophy of work hard and play harder, as people always taught to prioritize, as people always conditioned to focus on the 'larger' issues of life.... have we forgotten what is it to live? Have we forgotten to appreciate life in its simplicity...a life as it is meant to be- full of chatter, meaningless twitter, rambling stories told over innumerable cups of tea, hoarse throats, sticky oil laced hands, and shared cigarettes? For me novels like Seth's, A Suitable Boy reminds me of that noise, that delightful relevant noise that fills in the background, reminding us of the greater, yet simple world around us....a world that essentially derives meaning from those mundane joys, and woes...a world full of ordinary people like Seth's characters...who become extraordinary, not because of heroic actions, but simply because they remember to live.!